


scene after scene

by drashian



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Deaf Character, Developing Relationship, Flashbacks, Intersex, M/M, Multiple Sclerosis, Road Trips, Trans Character, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 22:39:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1705136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drashian/pseuds/drashian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything had been banking on the world ending.</p>
<p>It doesn't end, though, and that leaves everyone with this big hole where the future they didn't plan for suddenly stretches ahead of them.</p>
<p>Newt struggles and reaches to fill that hole, and comes up with two things: Hermann Gottlieb and a cross-country road trip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	scene after scene

**Author's Note:**

> The fic you've all been waiting for, ROADTRIPFIC2k14! The headcanons road trip to end all road trip fics. For sake of clarity, these are the headcanons we're working with in this fic:
> 
> Newt: trans man, bipolar, autistic, Hard of Hearing/Deaf  
> Hermann: amab intersex, nonbinary, autistic, has multiple sclerosis
> 
> Not all of those headcanons are actually mentioned in this fic. All of them are in my mind when I write these characters, though.
> 
> The art for this fic done by the indomitable [scullyinnightvale](http://scullyinnightvale.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> WARNING FOR: discussion of medical trauma due to being intersex, brief reference to past self harm, mild sexual content (backseat makeouts)
> 
> (Title is from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuNgDMdXAlM).)

Newt isn’t 100% sure at what point he ended up in the medical clinic, but that’s where he wakes up. The room is the cleanest part of the Shatterdome—not that that means complete sterility, because there’s definitely some mold creeping on the ceiling tiles. It smells distinctly like the overuse of antibacterials and bleach.

He considers sitting up or looking at something that isn’t the ceiling but those seem like pretty monumental tasks. He’s not sure if everything is blurry because of his missing glasses or the assault on his blood vessels that drifting with kaiju apparently causes. Briefly, he hopes that the bleeding has been confined to his eyes and nose and not the much more sensitive brain that’s incredibly close to those orifices. But, oh well, it’s not like he could really stop that from happening. And he’s in medical so it’s probably okay.

A fan whirs somewhere nearby. There might be voices in a room adjacent but he isn’t sure.

He slowly turns his head to the right, wincing at the stiffness in all his muscles. Everything was really, really not awesome right now—but oh, hey, Hermann’s here at least.

Hermann is awake, but his eyes are closed. Newt's not sure how he knows that Hermann's face isn't quite relaxed enough to be asleep, but he does. He opens his mouth to say hi, exchange some pleasantries, maybe compare memories of the past few hours because his aren’t working so well, but nothing comes out. He closes his mouth, coughs pathetically, tries again. Hermann opens his eyes even though what comes out is not exactly words but some kind of strangled vocal chord noise.

“You’re awake,” Hermann says, giving him a look that’s half disapproving and half pleased.

Newt clears his throat again. “Couldn’t leave you alone,” he chokes out. Pretty much all of his body functions are crapping out right now, which is far from ideal.

“Quite.” Hermann sighs, shifting his body uncomfortably. “You’ve been out for a few hours. You’re in pretty bad shape.”

“Tell it like it is,” Newt quips.

Hermann raises an eyebrow. “You’ve suffered unknown amounts of neurological trauma and no one is certain you won’t just hemorrhage and die at any point.”

“Please don’t actually tell it like it is.”

Hermann scoffs and they stare at each other for a while. Newt wonders if this is a drift thing or an exhaustion thing or what.

“Thanks,” Newt says, finally, because just looking at each other is making him think too much about the memories he suddenly has a front row center ticket to. “For, uh, drifting with me and a kaiju. And saving the world. I mean, partially. Helping save the world. That was pretty cool. Big fan.”

Hermann smiles. “I’m happy to give a repeat performance, though I very much hope that won’t be necessary.”

Newt twists around so he’s laying on his side and not just craning his neck to see Hermann. “Me too. But you never know; maybe one day mathematics will be cool and world-saving again—I’m not holding my breath, personally. If it comes to it and you need a biologist sidekick, I’m a pretty good choice, though.”

“Quite.”

They stare at each other some more, which is simultaneously really awkward and not awkward at all.

“So, uh, common theme of our lives is ‘doctors are fucking scary’ and we’re hanging out in the medical bay, which is pretty awesome and not at all anxiety inducing.”

Hermann stares at him for a while, then sighs. “I would tell you to shut up, but you are in possession of all my memories, and I yours, so it would be pointless because you would keep talking even if I didn’t respond.”

Newt shrugs, which is hard to do laying on his side and with all his body parts screaming at him. “I’m just making really awkward conversation so we can get it out of the way and get to being badass drift partners after.”

“We hardly qualify as drift partners. And there’s really no other reason for us to drift again, so it’s going to be a one-time event.”

“Spoilsport. It still counts, I mean, plenty of people only drifted once before they… y’know.”

The mood darkens significantly and, as usual, Newt’s foot goes straight to his mouth.

“I mean I’m not saying we’re gonna—“

“Are you at all aware you’ve been under observation for several hours due to no medical professionals having _any idea_ if you’re going to survive?” Hermann stares at him wide-eyed and pleading.

“So are you.”

“What?”

Newt sighs. “You drifted, too. I bet you’re under just as much observation.”

Hermann’s mouth is thin. “You drifted twice. _Twice_.”

“…oops?” A laugh escapes Newt’s lips even though he doesn’t really want it to.

“Do you have any concept that maybe endangering your life multiple times was very hard for everyone else to observe?”

Newt breaks out grinning despite himself. Hermann frowns, clearly offended, but Newt just smiles more, laughing a bit.

“You’re adorable, Hermann, you know that? You pretend like you don’t care about me but holy shit, you care _so much_. I’ve been in your brain, dude, don’t pretend otherwise.”

Hermann blushes a little bit, like, actually blushes, and that’s just way too much so Newt starts laughing which makes him cough and yelp in pain because ow, his everything hurts. Hermann smiles and then looks at him with naked concern.

When Newt’s done coughing, he reaches a hand across the gap between their beds. “You can never leave me now. You have to make sure I don’t hemorrhage and I have to make sure you smile sometimes.”

Hermann takes his hand. Their fingers intertwine, gripping lightly stretched across the distance. “I concede.”

First, they stay in medical for the rest of the day. Newt is most likely not immediately going to die, so they are let loose.

Next, they both get wicked drunk, because the afterparty for the cancelled apocalypse is fucking wild.

After a few days, the Shatterdome starts to clear out. They’re two of the last to leave, leaving behind only Tendo, Mako, Raleigh, and Herc. They promise to stay in touch with teary eyes and board their flight to California. Newt confides that he’s predicting only six months before this core group ends up living down the street from each other. Hermann raises an eyebrow at his predictive model and says he’s capping it at four.

 

\- - -

The first time Newt and Hermann met, Hermann had been a nervous wreck with glasses and a constant tremor in his right hand. Newt had longer hair back then, roughly falling around his shoulders. The combination of that and his awkward voice made him look like a dorky 16-year-old, which really didn’t help with this whole complex he had about being way younger than anyone else in his field.

They had video chatted twice before, heard each other’s voice a few times, and Newt wasn’t sure about Hermann but he had totally stalked all possible video recordings of him on the internet. Still, he was a little bit taller than Newt had expected and a little bit more angular.

“Hey! Gotttlieb!” he had called out across the hotel lobby to him and in retrospect, he was a little bit too manic that day and it had been a poor first impression but cut him some slack. It was a big day.

The rest is, of course, history. No surprise to anyone who’d met the two of them, they got along for about seven minutes before Newt had some unscientific words for how he felt about the way Kaiju remains were treated (that is to say, _not_ treated, because in those days most everything was destroyed immediately). They spent nine years hating each other and always ending up working in the same places but at the end of the day, if a lab tech dared to mess with the other, there would be hell to pay.

 

\- - -

As soon as the door is open, Newt charges across the room and throws himself onto the far bed, dropping the suitcases he’d been holding clumsily on the floor. Hermann sighs and sits down on the other bed far more graciously, looking at the badly lit motel room with distaste.

“This is the life, dude! No more commanding officers and a shitty hotel room! In California, which, y’know, I’ve never really been much of a patriot, but this country is great because at least I speak the same language as most people, so I’m having a great time.”

Hermann ignores the rest of Newt’s rambling for the most part, but when the conversation finally lands on “we should get a car, let’s get a car, let’s drive somewhere”, he looks over.

“Where are you proposing we drive to?”

Newt stops, screwing up his face in dramatic thought. “Massachusetts?”

Hermann rolls his eyes.

\- - -

They get a car.

Hermann is still not sure, three hours later, why he’d agreed to do this, but they had nothing better to do with themselves. Saving the world had the unintended side effect of ending their careers.

\- - -

Hermann’s first memory of the doctors is when he is four. He knows it’s not the first time he’s been there, not at all, but he remembers blood tests and examinations. He remembers stripping and feeling ashamed but not knowing why. Multiple visits blur into one because he remembers it over and over again, the same but distinct.

He remembers crying uncontrollably when they told him why his hands were shaking, why he needed glasses, why his legs felt too weak to carry him sometimes even though he was so skinny.

He remembers some of the surgeries, but not all of them.

Somewhere, there is a psychiatrist’s office with tall, pale green walls and bookshelves overflowing. He doesn’t remember his voice but he remembers being very, very small.

The older he gets, the stronger the memories are. Spending all night online trying to figure out what was wrong with him when the doctors didn’t give him a straight answer. One medication, then another, then a third. Spending weeks at a time in bed, spending nights in the hospital, injections, his first cane, screaming at a doctor for suggesting another surgery, his second cane, the day he turned eighteen and told them to stop giving him hormones.

Hermann jerks awake in the backseat of their rented sedan and rubs his eyes to forget being pulled apart in front of a dozen doctors taking notes, his chest heavy with shame, his muscles betraying him, unable to escape.

“You okay, dude?” Newt says from the front seat. Hermann had been reluctant to let him drive, but eventually it had been necessary. He wipes sweat off his brow from the dry Nevada air and the unpleasant memories.

“Yes… yes. I’m fine.” Newt grimaces; he knows it’s a lie.

Hermann lays his head down again and sighs.

\- - -

Hermann wakes up next to find the car stopped, the doors all open. He slowly sits up, stretching and trying in vain to get rid of the cramps all over his body. Grabbing his cane from the passenger’s seat, he stands and looks around. The sun has just set and the sky is still purple to the west, but stars are starting to be visible. And oh god, are they visible. Even without complete darkness, Hermann can see the form of the Milky Way, striped above his head. He cranes his neck, follows the lines of constellations he learned as a child.

“Maybe we should live here,” Newt says from behind him, and Hermann turns. He’s spread a blanket on the hood of the car and is lying down, stargazing. Hermann walks over and pulls himself up beside Newt.

“On the salt flats? Terribly inconvenient place to live.” Hermann lays his head down, watching the stars twinkle from so, so far away.

“Well, maybe near here. One of those pit stop towns.” Hermann can practically hear Newt grin suddenly. “It’ll be like that movie!”

Hermann sighs at both Newt and himself for knowing exactly what movie Newt is talking about. “Given that we are _humans_ , I’m not sure to what degree that movie applies to us.”

“Whatever. Spoilsport.”

Hermann scoffs and, in a moment of courage, places his hand delicately into Newt’s, who immediately grabs it tightly and laces their fingers together.

\- - -

Hermann drives for most of Wyoming, Newt snoring in the passenger seat, contorted to try to maximize on the limited space available. The road ahead is long and hot, not much to view but scrubbrush and the endless expanse of the sky.

Newt jerks awake, his arms flailing for a second before he groans and sits up. “Where are w—oh, okay, same as always.” Wyoming has been a long, long state.

“Do you need to stop for anything?” Hermann asks, watching Newt rub his face and mess with his hair from the corner of his eye.

“Nah, I’m good.”

They sit in silence for a while.

“So,” Newt says, long and drawn out and dramatic as ever.

“So.”

“So like, I’m not trying to compare our experiences because they’re pretty different, but I’m just thinking that maybe if we’d been more up front about some stuff, we could have gotten over this whole hating each other thing a long time ago.”

The car fills with silence like a balloon quickly expanding, pushing on Hermann’s chest.

“Yes, I think you might be right,” he says, and at any other time, in any other world, he would never have admitted this. But he has seen everything that Newt has to offer, laid him out bare and been laid bare to him, and now, on the other side of the Drift, he finds himself more and more happy right at Newton’s side.

Newt grins. “Good. Now can we go ‘twenty questions’ on each other or do I have to live with the tension?”

\- - -

Newt throws a piece of bread at Hermann across the table, who swats it away. “Please, Newton, I know that you’re bored, but this is not a good form of entertainment.”

“How much longer is this going to take?”

Hermann sighs. “This was your idea. We’ve made it to Nebraska, which is an impressive number of states to go without murdering each other, but we’ve got a long while left.”

Newt eats another bite of his burger. They don’t make much conversation over their meal and they tip well. Newt walks slowly back towards the car, looking much more like he’s going to loiter in the diner parking lot than actually start driving.

“Hey, look, I’ve got like twenty texts from Mako,” he says, already typing responses.

“Maybe you should check your phone more often,” Hermann suggests, but Newt is already lifting his phone to his ear.

“Hey Mako! No, I’m fine, we’re—yeah, we’re in Nebraska, it’s pretty great. Yeah. Lots of corn. What? No, I’m totally surprised! Okay, maybe not surprised at all.”

Hermann cocks an eyebrow. Newt jams his phone into his shoulder and signs, _Mako’s moving to San Francisco_.

_I told you so_ , Hermann signs back. He’s not nearly as proficient in sign language as Newt, for fairly obvious reasons, but he picked it up in the past years of working with him. Probably one of those early signs of being completely enamored with him that he should have noticed a long time ago, but—never mind that.

“No, dude, it’s totally awesome. Yeah! No, please do, he keeps talking about you and everyone else, it’s getting—yeah, okay.” Newt shoves the phone into Hermann’s hands.

“Hello?”

“Hermann!” Mako’s voice is the same as ever, though maybe a little tired. “How have you been?”

“I’ve been fine, considering Newton insists on sleeping in the car and not in a motel,” he says, shooting a glare at Newt.

“Ooh, rough. I just wanted to say hello because neither of you ever give me any details on your honeymoon.”

Hermann flushes. “It’s not our—!”

Mako laughs. “See? I just proved that it was. Anyway, I have to go help Raleigh, we’re moving in literally right now. Call me sometime, please, actually do it and don’t just say you will.”

Hermann was never as close to Mako as Newt was, but he feels a sense of loss swelling inside him when he considers disappointing her. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Good. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Goodbye,” Hermann says, and hands the phone back to Newt.

“I can’t believe she and Raleigh are moving in together, that’s pretty awesome.” Newt, apparently, bought candy when Hermann wasn’t watching him in the gas station, because he’s now eating a Twix.

“Are they together?” Hermann asks.

Newt shrugs. “I mean, I don’t think they’re really dating per se, but aren’t you kind of always together with your drift partner?” He gives Hermann a look, like he doesn’t want him to see how concerned he is with Hermann’s answer, but every look Newt has is transparent. Even before the Drift.

Hermann shrugs a bit. “Perhaps. Even if you’re family, or married, or partners, you share a certain bond that no one else can understand. I never even understood, and I created much of the technology.” He gives Newt a small smile.

“Yeah, I think so too,” Newt says, and pushes Hermann against the trunk of the rented navy sedan and kisses him. It’s rushed, not very romantic, but Hermann pulls away and adjusts their heads so no one’s nose is getting squashed and it’s a lot better.

Hermann presses their foreheads together, catching his breath and smiling widely. “I’ve been waiting for you to do that,” he says, and kisses Newt again and again.

Newt always wanted tattoos, and the Kaiju provide such a good subject matter that he immediately starts planning. It’s not until many years later that he starts. Originally, they were matching shoulder pieces, but as more and more came to land and he became more and more well-known in the field, well, it expanded. Down his arms they spread, covering scars with the thing he now lived for.

He decides to take his chest, too, when he runs out of room on his arms and there’s still more landing, still so many amazing creatures to see and study. He can’t face them up close (not in a Jaeger because he’s “unstable” and he’d feel weird killing one, anyway, and no one’s ever really survived a face-to-face with one) but he can put them under his skin, literally, and that is enough. His chest never grew much hair anyway and his surgery scars aren’t exactly his favorite feature, so yeah, it’s logical.

Before he gets much further, the Jaegers start to fall, and he is suddenly the victim of merciless funding cuts and people start to look at him with more and more anger for the tattoos. It’s not like he’s the only person with Kaiju tattoos!

“Is it a good idea to go get a tattoo? Like right now?” Newt’s feet are propped on the dash and he’s munching on Chex Mix when he realizes that he really, really, _really_ needs a tattoo of Otachi. Like, right now.

Hermann sighs his longsuffering sigh that he uses exclusively with Newt. “No, it would be a terrible idea. You would need to find a reputable place, and neither of us have ever been to Iowa. And then we would have to consult with them, get the tattoo, and this will take us a full day, maybe two.”

Newt shrugs. “Just an idea. You’re totally coming with me when I do it, though.”

“Sure,” Hermann says sarcastically, but they both kind of know he will be there anyway.

\- - -

“This is possibly the worst idea you’ve ever had,” Hermann says with surprising self-control as Newt grabs his arm to pull him off of the backseat floor.

“No, this is a really good idea. Just some minor flaws in the plan.” Once Hermann straightens himself in the seat again, Newt resumes kissing him, crawling into his lap and pushing him tightly against the seat.

Hermann kisses him back, but gently pushes him away. “This isn’t working, here, let me—“ He grabs Newt’s shoulders and pushes him onto his back, lying on the seats, and crawls on top of him. Hermann kisses him again, not in as much danger of being knocked to the ground or crushed.

“Holy shit, this is quickly crossing from ‘fun backseat makeouts’ to ‘the best sex ever’, and—and it’s really—oh my _god_ though—“ Newt is incapable of shutting up whenever Hermann’s mouth is elsewhere (in this case, on his neck and collarbone). Hermann kisses his lips again just to make him stop, tugging his hair for good measure.

Newt scrambles to get both Hermann’s clothes off and his own, which doesn’t really work so well, so Hermann moves back to let Newt sit up so they can actually strip down. Newt’s tattoos come alive in the dark as he moves, writhing and sliding across his frame with intoxicating colors and movement.

“This is the worst idea,” Hermann says, glancing out the window and seeing dark, dark cornfields and a few streetlights a good distance away. It is eerily silent except for the low sounds of the highway in the distance.

“We’ll never get caught,” Newt says, running his hands over Hermann’s chest and stomach, stroking and gripping the soft skin with his fingertips. “Stop worrying about everything.”

“I know,” Hermann says, kissing Newt’s tattooed chest. “This is just so… juvenile.”

Newt laughs, throwing his head back as Hermann nuzzles his belly. “That’s the point of this whole trip! Live a little!”

Hermann smirks and pushes Newt back against the seat again, kissing him rough and long and desperately trying to make up for lost time.

\- - -

Newt put his feet up on the seat opposite him, effectively blocking Hermann inside the booth. Hermann rolls his eyes but doesn’t comment on it, which is probably progress in their relationship. Newt steals a fry from Hermann’s plate.

“What should we do when the road trip is over?” he says, looking thoughtfully out the window at the darkened road. The server offers them a refill on their waters and he turns it down without looking at him.

Hermann shrugs. “It was your idea in the first place.”

“Yeah, because I had this whole weird plan about going back to the place where it all began and making you fall in love with me but you did that way too early.”

Hermann chews on that for a minute.

“Well… we could always just settle down once we get there,” he says carefully.

Newt looks at him and grins. “You’re a genius.”

They finish their fries (well, Newt finishes both of their fries) and while Hermann pays, Newt desperately tries to win a stuffed animal from the claw machine.

“I was gonna give it to you,” he grumbles as they walk across the parking lot.

“It’s the thought that counts,” Hermann tells him and kisses his forehead.

\- - -

“Nah, it’s no big deal, I’ll just talk to her, tell her—oh my god, Hermann, Hermann, _Hermann stop, we need to stop_.” Hermann looks over at Newt with alarm and starts to pull towards the nearest exit. Newt has the phone jammed against his ear and he’s been talking to Tendo for the past half an hour about absolutely nothing, but suddenly he’s pointing at a sign and acting like he needs to get off the road immediately.

Hermann looks at the sign.

He sighs and moves back into his lane.

“Hermann! I told you we needed to stop!” He groans. “No, dude, we’re passing by—yeah—no he won’t stop it’s complete _bullshit_ what kind of _shitty boyfriend_ is he—“

“ _Newton, I am not a shitty boyfriend because I refuse to take us to Cedar Point_.”

\- - -

“So what are your siblings even like? You never talk about them.” Newt’s feet are on the dashboard yet again and he’s chugging a bottle of Coke like his life depends on it.

“I have not been in much contact with them for many years, which is simultaneously relieving and disappointing.” Hermann pauses for a minute while he passes another car. “Dietrich is nice enough, but he’s the eldest and the most competitive. He is an attorney and has an attractive wife, a nice car, two kids, a house with a big garage. I don’t resent it, of course, he always looked out for me and he deserves a nice life, but it’s all for show, really.

“Karla is hard to pin down; unless you’ve known her your whole life you’ll think she’s cold and ruthless but truthfully, she just knows how to do her job. She’s perpetually dating a woman named Jenny but they’re never going to settle down. When she was young, she made me play the dog when she played house.”

Hermann looks over at Newt, who has tossed the bottle into the backseat (despite all warnings to stop turning their rented car into a trash bin) but is listening intently.

“Dietrich is younger than me, so finally when he was born, I was a little more out of the spotlight. He has that angelic look; blonde hair, chubby face, complete innocence. He’s actually a doctor now, surprisingly. I haven’t seen him in the longest time because he escaped to boarding school and then to college.”

He drives in silence for a little while.

“Siblings sound awesome, man, I wish I had kids my age to hang out with. I just grew up really fast and hung out with 20-somethings when I was a teenager.”

Hermann scoffs. “Your unorthodox schooling choices don’t impress me.”

Newt laughs for a solid minute, wiping tears from his eyes. “See, this? This is why I like you better than most everyone else.”

\- - -

Hermann switches the radio off.

Twenty seconds pass, and Newt reaches to turn it on again. Hermann swats his hand away.

“No. We’ve been driving for days and I deserve some quiet.”

Newt pouts and looks out the window, watching Albany go by.

A full minute goes by, then Newt suddenly spins, switches on the radio, and puts it at full volume. Hermann groans and tries to turn it off, but Newt grabs his arm and pushes it away. The car swerves dangerously and Hermann clamps both hands on the wheel because Newt’s determination to turn on his stupid millennial radio station is now officially _endangering their lives_.

He resigns himself to yet another rendition of Katy Perry’s entire discography, because that’s what this godforsaken station has decided to play. He feels personally targeted by this decision.

“One more state,” he whispers, as Newt sings “Teenage Dream” with as much gusto and seductive hand gestures towards him as possible while still keeping a seatbelt on.

\- - -

Newt pulls the car into a parking space and stops it, taking a long, long time to actually take the keys out and unbuckle. He pops the door open and stands outside of it, staring across the wide parking lot at his alma mater.

Hermann walks around the car and puts a hand on his shoulder. “What’s up?” he says, looking at Newt, who is chewing his lip.

“Well, I mean, we came here because it all started here. This is where I was when Trespasser landed. Well, not _here_ , but—“ he points off towards the left “—over there, about.”

He takes a couple steps forward, then stops, putting his hands on the roof of the car.

“It’s okay to not be ready,” Hermann says.

Newt turns around and shakes his head. “No, it’s not that, exactly. I mean if I had to go back, I would be able to do it, no problem. But the thing is, I don’t want to go back.”

Hermann rubs Newt’s arm slowly. “You don’t have to. It’s a new world, right? We have so many possibilities in front of us now and we can do anything we want.”

“You don’t want to go back?”

Hermann scoffs. “To what? To my family, who are all somewhere between distant apathy and complete hatred? To Berlin? To some government job doing weapons engineering because now that we don’t have any Kaiju to kill, we have to start going back to killing each other? To academia, lecturing about programming defunct weapons systems and modeling collapsed quantum rifts?”

Newt laughs warily, wiping a tear from his eye that Hermann hadn’t even noticed was falling.

“No, Newton. Newt. We have to do something new, now.”

Newt grabs him, pulling him close for a long hug. Hermann wraps Newt in his arms and hopes that his attempts at impromptu motivational speeches are anything close to… well, you know.

“That was badass,” Newt whispers into Hermann’s thin t-shirt. Over the course of this road trip, they’ve both completely devolved their wardrobe to jeans and t-shirts because anything else is too hot and too uncomfortable to sit in.

“I try.”

Newt releases him and wipes snot off his face. “Okay, dude. I still think the road trip was necessary. And awesome. And achieved all of its main goals.”

“Which were?”

“I already told you. Fulfill some nostalgia quota I’ve been missing for a while and make you fall in love with me.”

Hermann smiles. “I thought you were joking.”

“Nope, dead serious.”

They both lean against the car and look at the dark glass of classroom windows.

“So what now?”

Newt shrugs. “Well, Mako and Raleigh are already in the Bay Area, and Tendo’s totally thinking of bringing him and Alison there…”

Hermann grins. “How long until Herc comes? We have a predictive model to prove.”

They both chuckle. Newt rests his head on Hermann’s shoulder.

Newt pushes himself upright after a minute, stepping in front of Hermann and brandishing the car keys. “You ready to bring this car back? It is a rental.”

Hermann rolls his eyes. “Time to do it all again.”

**Author's Note:**

> The pair took I-80, then I-90 for this trip, if you're curious.
> 
> I never thought I would write a fic that briefly took place in my hometown. Nor one that references the movie Cars.
> 
> Places visited:  
> 1\. Shatterdome Hong Kong  
> 2\. San Francisco, California  
> 3\. unknown part of Nevada  
> 4\. Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah  
> 5\. Red Desert, Wyoming  
> 6\. unnamed diner in Nebraska  
> 7\. unknown part of Iowa  
> 8\. unknown part of Illinois  
> 9\. South Bend, Indiana  
> 10\. outside of Sandusky, Ohio  
> 11\. outside of Erie, Pennsylvania  
> 12\. outside of Albany, New York  
> 13\. MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
> 
> P.S. Did you check out the artist for this fic yet? I already told you to. Here, [let me tell you again](http://scullyinnightvale.tumblr.com/).
> 
> P.P.S. Hang out with me on [tumblr](http://kaijusona.tumblr.com/), y'all.
> 
> P.P.P.S. A sequel is already in the planning stages. Get hype.


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